The 21 Bitcoin Computer

[Come-from-Beyond]

How else do you enable true micropayment possibilities than by allowing ubiquitous access to mining?

Bring back ability to send dust without fees maybe?

[BitUsher]

How else do you enable true micropayment possibilities than by allowing ubiquitous access to mining?

These folks are very, very clever.

So you are suggesting their definition of microtransactions is less than 10 cents which is prohibitively expensive to send right now with fees being 2 pennies?
What does this hardware have to do with sending dust, why not just use one of many services like changetip to send microtransactions or is this going to be a decentralized caching layer for micro-transactions that doesn't use an off the chain solution(like the lightning network)?

[brg444]

How else do you enable true micropayment possibilities than by allowing ubiquitous access to mining?

Bring back ability to send dust without fees maybe?

There are reasons why that is not possible and that would be a hack anyway.

By participating hashing power to 21inc mining pool (as negligible as it could be) they will aggregate all of their embedded chips and Bitcoin computer devices micropayments and include them into blocks they mine.

[brg444]

How else do you enable true micropayment possibilities than by allowing ubiquitous access to mining?

These folks are very, very clever.

So you are suggesting their definition of microtransactions is less than 10 cents which is prohibitively expensive to send right now with fees being 2 pennies?
What does this hardware have to do with sending dust, why not just use one of many services like changetip to send microtransactions or is this going to be a decentralized caching layer for micro-transactions that doesn't use an off the chain solution(like the lightning network)?

Yes, I am honestly unsure about the specifics but I'm confident your second statement is close to what they're doing.

See my reply above and yes indeed the microtransactions they refer to will be less than 10 cents. We're likely talking satoshis here.

[meono]

The perfect compliment for this "bitcoin computer" would be a few of those "mining lightbulbs" so you can see your money being wasted more clearly.

lol


thats so true....

[BitUsher]

There are reasons why that is not possible and that would be a hack anyway.

By participating hashing power to 21inc mining pool (as negligible as it could be) they will aggregate all of their embedded chips and Bitcoin computer devices micropayments and include them into blocks they mine.

If that is the case , that is a creative solution that also allows bitcoin to scale more (If and only if the process is decentralized and acting like a caching layer). They are really horrible about explaining this simple idea in their marketing I do say.

Case use ... You are a songwriter and manage to convince 5% of the bitcoin users to buy your song for 1 penny in btc each allowing you to earn 2k in profit tax and itunes fee free . Rinse and repeat and earn a reasonable income, and probably much more by releasing through itunes only.

Hmm.. now this sounds exciting as any centralized offchain solution exposes one to the risk of taxes for earned income and counterparty risk. What is also interesting is this opens up a huge market demand for bitcoin as people will be excited to use itunes alternatives where music costs 1 penny a song instead of 99 pennies a song.

[meono]

There are reasons why that is not possible and that would be a hack anyway.

By participating hashing power to 21inc mining pool (as negligible as it could be) they will aggregate all of their embedded chips and Bitcoin computer devices micropayments and include them into blocks they mine.

If that is the case , that is a creative solution that also allows bitcoin to scale more (If and only if the process is decentralized and acting like a caching layer). They are really horrible about explaining this simple idea in their marketing I do say.

Nope it does not work at all. Its like having a webserver at your home so you can host your own cheap websites.

Think about it.

The economical method is to offer services to dust tx at a fixed monthly fee. ..... tada.... webhosting service..... lol

[brg444]

There are reasons why that is not possible and that would be a hack anyway.

By participating hashing power to 21inc mining pool (as negligible as it could be) they will aggregate all of their embedded chips and Bitcoin computer devices micropayments and include them into blocks they mine.

If that is the case , that is a creative solution that also allows bitcoin to scale more (If and only if the process is decentralized and acting like a caching layer). They are really horrible about explaining this simple idea in their marketing I do say.

Nope it does not work at all. Its like having a webserver at your home so you can host your own cheap websites.

Think about it.

The economical method is to offer services to dust tx at a fixed monthly fee. ..... tada.... webhosting service..... lol

fuck off you troll.

[BitUsher]

I ignored him long ago when he started on the block size debate, it was so obvious with his stupid signature.

Yes, we all ignored him already , but both of you are forcing all of us who ignored him to read his idiocy by quoting him.

Hopefully 21 reads this thread and clarifies their caching micropayments layer so we have a reason to be excited about this product(or at least steals this idea and runs with it ) because as it stands now it is pointless as marketed.  

http://www.coindesk.com/21-inc-bitcoin-computer-developers/

Still sounds like they are throwing it out there with a CLI and API and hoping others figure it out.

 "Horowitz suggested it's not immediately clear what the 21 Bitcoin
Computer would allow developers to build, but he strived to point out
the similarities between it and early web browsers."

[TheRealSteve]

By participating hashing power to 21inc mining pool (as negligible as it could be) they will aggregate all of their embedded chips and Bitcoin computer devices micropayments and include them into blocks they mine.

More specifically.. if a good chunk of those who you'd be exchanging micropayments with - i.e. the device-to-device communication and payment settlement idea - are via their (or a compatible) platform... they don't need to include micropayments into any block at all.  They can just do what every online wallet/exchange, changetip, etc. does and settle payments internally, and only deal with the block chain when payments go to / come from external services.  E.g. your device wants data from another device 10 times per day at 1 token (equivalent to 1 satoshi, for argument's sake) per request.. no problem, device A can sign messages from device B to supply device B with proof that device A owes device B the n tokens and when whoever owns device B wants a whole bunch of these tokens paid out in actual Bitcoin (or fiat or whatever), their platform can grab the equivalent worth of tokens from whatever was mined and put that on the blockchain as needed.

The mining chip in all of this still doesn't make any sense, though

[BitUsher]

The mining chip in all of this still doesn't make any sense, though

Neither the rasberry Pi hardware... why not simply release a marketplace which allows decentralized micropayments that eventually hit the blockchain?

It only makes sense if we assume that the mining chip allows people to get bitcoin without the hassle of buying it and their objective is to grow and strengthen the bitcoin ecosystem by decentralizing mining and increasing node count. Remember alot of these investors are bitcoin bagholders too and are probably concerned about the centralization of mining and node drop off...

[Mikestang]

It's also funny that you can't buy it with bitcoin (yet...) because they don't think bitcoin should be used for purchases like this.  

Someone give me 50 million dollars, I can come up with terrible ideas all day long for half the price of these guys.

[brg444]

The mining chip in all of this still doesn't make any sense, though

Neither the rasberry Pi hardware... why not simply release a marketplace which allows decentralized micropayments that eventually hit the blockchain?

It only makes sense if we assume that the mining chip allows people to get bitcoin without the hassle of buying it and their objective is to grow and strengthen the bitcoin ecosystem by decentralizing mining and increasing node count. Remember alot of these investors are bitcoin bagholders too and are probably concerned about the centralization of mining and node drop off...

That's the point.

The device as it stand is a pilot, eventually the mining chips will be embedded right into your computer's motherboard.

[brg444]

It's also funny that you can't buy it with bitcoin (yet...) because they don't think bitcoin should be used for purchases like this.  

Someone give me 50 million dollars, I can come up with terrible ideas all day long for half the price of these guys.

These are some of the brightest minds in Silicon Valley, give us a break...It's clear you are simply too simple to process what they're trying to do.

[HostFat]

By mining on their pool, with their device, your tx will always have high priority against all other tx from others users.
You have paid for this, and you will maintaining the pool and then the priority.

[brg444]

By mining on their pool, with their device, your tx will always have high priority against all other tx from others users.
You have paid for this, and you will maintaining the pool and then the priority.

Exactly, and more importantly: you likely won't have to pay for transactions fees.

[BitUsher]

That's the point.

The device as it stand is a pilot, eventually the mining chips will be embedded right into your computer's motherboard.

Yes, embedded in routers, motherboards, ect.. make sense as they will drive down the cost of the miner to a couple dollars.

I understand their vision, but we are commenting on the product and have to strain to think of a possible use case.
They would have been much better off with the previous leaked ideas ... give away free routers and kept 2/3rds of the btc as people wont care about the 1 dollar more in monthly electric use. Apparently, that didn't pan out or represented false rumors. Either way, they aren't going to be selling many of these devices they way they are marketed.

By mining on their pool, with their device, your tx will always have high priority against all other tx from others users.
You have paid for this, and you will maintaining the pool and then the priority.

For 3-4 % of blocks. Perhaps they will start and arms race with those efficient miners and grow their pool in time where this becomes more of a benefit.

[TheRealSteve]

Nah, the raspberry pi type hardware makes a lot of sense.  The people they're targeting are likely already familiar with that sort of device (if not an rpi then a beaglebone black or a pcduino or etc.) and these devices make it pretty easy to just slap some other arbitrary hardware on there and have the device communicating with that hardware with very little effort.

At this point it isn't even clear if people are 'getting' bitcoin, or (as per my post) tokens-equivalent-to.  If they're not getting bitcoin then a payment portal to buy the tokens direct would be a lot simpler, cost effective for the end-user, etc.  If they are getting bitcoin indirectly (i.e. payout is to 21's pool) then that doesn't do much against mining centralization other than growing one of the existing players.  If they *are* getting bitcoin directly, then it's back to a whole bunch of microtransactions in blocks (as payout to the device owners) and a whole bunch of other mess.

Agreed on the node part, though.  As it is, I wish the hardware nodes available for commercial sale were more affordable.

And yes, this is commentary on this specific product

[Come-from-Beyond]

Exactly, and more importantly: you likely won't have to pay for transactions fees.

And wait several hours to get your transaction included into a rare 21inc block?

[Jammalan the Prophet]

The mining chip in all of this still doesn't make any sense, though

Neither the rasberry Pi hardware... why not simply release a marketplace which allows decentralized micropayments that eventually hit the blockchain?

It only makes sense if we assume that the mining chip allows people to get bitcoin without the hassle of buying it and their objective is to grow and strengthen the bitcoin ecosystem by decentralizing mining and increasing node count. Remember alot of these investors are bitcoin bagholders too and are probably concerned about the centralization of mining and node drop off...

Just create another damn altcoin ....problem solved.

Transactions that are not in the blockchain can be manipulated , reversed erased.
Coins that are not in your personal wallet are not your coins.

Trusting a 3rd party with your coins and transactions reminds me of....banks.